How dumb are golems?

[Nail]

The stone can now see and hear in a radius of 120' and speak telepathically with its wielder, the golem. I stick the stone inside the golem's chest.

And my one simple instruction to the golem when I leave my sanctum? Do what the stone says.

A clever idea! (And one that I may steal!!!)

....But completely irrelevant. We are no longer talking about the intelligence of the golem, but the intelligence of a specially prepared magic item. The current thread is not titled “Clever tricks DMs can use with Intelligent Magic Items”.

Moreover, your crafty plan has at least three problems:

• What is the cost of creating a golem with a spot for a specially prepared magic item in its chest?
• How can the item see and hear if it is sealed in the golem’s chest? Doesn’t it need line-of-sight, etc?
• What happens when the intelligent magic item no longer in your possession (but now in a non-intelligent golem’s possession) begins to assert its Ego?

I would guess that more enterprising DMs would have lots of fun with the last of those problems.

 

[Nail]

.....any caster capable of creating a stone or iron golem is also sufficiently qualified to make intelligent magical items, and it would be silly for them not to do so in the case of golems.

Not at all. "Silly" doesn't enter into it.

The fact is they are non-intelligent. This is not under dispute.

I would guess the explanation of Why they are so is this: it's too costly and/or risky to make an intelligent iron golem. Simple, Concise, Reasonable.

 

[Storm Raven]

Not at all. "Silly" doesn't enter into it.

The fact is they are non-intelligent. This is not under dispute.

I would guess the explanation of Why they are so is this: it's too costly and/or risky to make an intelligent iron golem. Simple, Concise, Reasonable.

Or, a more resonable interpretation is that it is unnecessary, if you allow for the golem to have some sort of baseline capability that makes it something other than useless.

If a golem were truly and wholly unintelligent in the way many suggest, then it would be incapable of fighting, walking, understanding instructions, and so forth. This is clearly not the case. Further, if it were as unintelligent as some posit, there would never be any rational reason for a spell caster to invest vast amounts of wealth and his own personal energy into creating them. Therefore, there must be some "base" level of responses a golem may take without specific instructions (otherwise, no rational being, let alone a highly intelligent wizard or extremely wise cleric, would ever bother building one).

The question is where you set the bar. If you set it too far towards the "golems are too stupid to differentiate between things that pose a threat and things that don't" end of the scale, then the intelligent magic stone becomes an inevitability. If you go too much the other way, then the golem becomes more powerful than it should be.

When I DM, I tend to assume that a golem may absorb almost any amount of direct instructions, but the more detailed and extensive the instructions are, the more likely there will be a contradictory condition created, which will cause no end of trouble, since the golem has no way to resolve contradictory instructions (other than the instructions themselves).

 

[Nail]

If a golem were truly and wholly unintelligent in the way many suggest, then it would be incapable of fighting, walking, understanding instructions, and so forth. ...

Fortunately, D&D makes a distinction between INt, Wis, and Chr.

IRON GOLEM
Large Construct
....
Abilities: Str 33, Dex 9, Con —, Int —, Wis 11, Cha 1

and

WISDOM (WIS)
Wisdom describes a character’s willpower, common sense, perception, and intuition. While Intelligence represents one’s ability to analyze information, Wisdom represents being in tune with and aware of one’s surroundings.

I see no problem with golems being able to walk without running into a wall, for instance. I do see a prolem with claiming a golem can figure out a creature is summoned (or even illusionary!) and thus can be strategically ignored.

 

[Storm Raven]

I see no problem with golems being able to walk without running into a wall, for instance. I do see a prolem with claiming a golem can figure out a creature is summoned (or even illusionary!) and thus can be strategically ignored.

But it can distinguish between an animated table (animated via the animate object spell) and a normal table? Exactly what is the difference in reasoning ability there? If I can identify a table as different from an animated table (and thus know not to bother to smash the normal table, but whack the animated one), or even more broadly, distinguish between a table and an orc, why is it "impossible" to distinguish between summoned creatures and nonsummoned creatures? There is a base level of capability inherent in the creation of the creature, otherwise it couldn't make these distinctions (and you would inevitably have the intelligent stone "keeper" for most golem sentries).

 

[RigaMortus]

Have you all not seen Terminator? Or The Matrix? Have we not learned from our past (errr, future) mistakes? Putting Intelligence into constructs is an apocolypse waiting to happen!

 

[azmodean]

Oh, and concerning the original situation of the thread, I would definitely have the golem ignore anything that does it no damage.

I must admit the word silly was overstating the situation. I do however think that intelligent golems would be quite common (compared to regular high-cr golems anyway, which isn't actually that common as far as creatures go) considering the fact that it is so relatively inexpensive to add the intelligent item enchantment.

 

[Harmon]

My experience with 3.5e golems-
Party of 9-10 lvl adventurers ran into a Stone Golem, no one could do more then a point or two of damage, as there were no proper weapons to do such damage.

Eventually the NPC Pally got on his horse and commited a number of Ride Bys on the Golem and killed it while the PCs watched.

No plans were concieved and none could be thought of other then that.

It was not the intelligence of the creature that we feared, but the fact that we could do nothing to harm it and that if we had fought anything else at the same time we would have been truely doomed.

 

[Nail]

But it can distinguish between an animated table (animated via the animate object spell) and a normal table? Exactly what is the difference in reasoning ability there?

No reasoning ability is there at all. One table moves, the other does not. The golem is able to perceive this.

or even more broadly, distinguish between a table and an orc, why is it "impossible" to distinguish between summoned creatures and nonsummoned creatures?

One creature "walked in thru the door", (say) while another "appeared". The golem is able to perceive this. The golem can't draw any reasoned conclusions from those observations, however. Instead, it has to base its actions on the simple commands given to it by its creator.

There is a base level of capability inherent in the creation of the creature, otherwise it couldn't make these distinctions ...

That's represented by the ability statistic Wisdom.

 

[Nail]

Oh, and concerning the original situation of the thread, I would definitely have the golem ignore anything that does it no damage.

A fun instruction!

So...the PCs step into the room, and don't attack the golem, and therefore don't damage the golem. What does the golem do? (Just ignore them, right?)

Better yet: the golem attacks the PCs, and the PCs attack back. The PCs don't have the appropriate material weapons (adamantine), and thus cannot damage the golem. Does the golem keep attacking them?

I want *you* to be the creator of all the golems my PC faces! Sounds like great fun!